Apple Hires Two Former Nike FuelBand Engineers, Possibly for iWatch Team

Earlier this year, Nike significantly downsized its FuelBand team, firing several members of the 80-person team that worked to create its well-known fitness tracker as part of a shift from hardware to software.

Apple snapped up two of the former FuelBand team members in June, Ryan Bailey and Jon Gale. As noted by 9to5Mac, Bailey, who served as a Senior Test and Validation Engineer at Nike is now listed as a Mechanical Design Engineer at Apple, while Gale, who was a Senior Firmware Engineer at Nike is now employed as a Sensing Systems Engineer at Apple.

nikefuelband
According to his LinkedIn profile, Bailey specialized in wearable device and consumer electronic product development, focused on providing engineering recommendations to major engineering leads. Gale, meanwhile, developed hardware and firmware architectures for Nike Digital Sport products.

Primary responsibility is to define both the hardware and firmware architectures for Nike Digital Sport products. Additionally, I managed the development of product firmware through partner companies. Responsible for delivering firmware to validate the design in a manufacturing environment, define and implementation of custom protocols to interact with other components of the Nike ecosystem, and translate high-level product requirements into actionable, testable definitions. I personally owned the delivery of firmware for the Nike FuelBand product line.

It is unclear if Gale and Bailey have joined Apple's wearables team to work on the iWatch, but it is a distinct possibility given their expertise on wearable devices. Apple offers many positions under the job titles of Mechanical Design Engineer and Sensing Systems Engineer, however, so it is unknown exactly what the two are working on.

Over the course of the past year, Apple has hired several experts in the health and fitness fields to join its iWatch team, including fitness guru Jay Blahnik, sleep expert Roy Raymann, pulse oximetry expert and former Chief Medical Officer Michael O'Reilly, and several other scientists and executives from notable sensor companies like AccuVein, C8 MediSensors, and Senseonics. Most recently, the company took on the former sales director of luxury watch brand TAG Heuer, Patrick Pruniaux, possibly to help market the iWatch.

According to a recent report from The Wall Street Journal, Apple's upcoming wearable device will feature 10 different sensors to track various health and fitness metrics. It's said to integrate heavily with the Health app in iOS 8, and it may come in both multiple sizes and multiple designs to satisfy a wide range of tastes. Apple is expected to introduce the iWatch at an October event.

Related Roundup: Apple Watch 10
Buyer's Guide: Apple Watch (Buy Now)

Popular Stories

M4 Mac mini Ortho Silver Cooler

Amazon Leaks Smaller Mac Mini With M4 and M4 Pro Chips, Two Front USB-C Ports, Up to 64GB of RAM, and More

Monday October 28, 2024 7:16 pm PDT by
Amazon has seemingly leaked the rumored next-generation Mac mini ahead of Apple's announcement this week, revealing several details. Our concept of a smaller Mac mini According to a comparison chart on Amazon's product listing for the new iMac, the new Mac mini will be available with M4 and M4 Pro chip options, with up to a 14-core CPU and up to a 20-core GPU. In addition, the chart indicates ...
maxresdefault

Apple Announces Redesigned Mac Mini With M4 and M4 Pro Chips, Two Front USB-C Ports, and More

Tuesday October 29, 2024 8:01 am PDT by
Apple today announced fully redesigned Mac mini models featuring the M4 and M4 Pro chips, a considerably smaller casing, two front-facing USB-C ports, Thunderbolt 5 connectivity, and more. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. The product refresh marks the first time the Mac mini has been redesigned in over a decade. The enclosure now measures just five by five inches...
Apple MacBook Pro M4 Cinema 4D Slack Finder Xcode 1

Apple Announces MacBook Pro Models With M4 Pro and M4 Max Chips, Thunderbolt 5 Support, and More

Wednesday October 30, 2024 8:01 am PDT by
Apple today announced new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models featuring M4 Pro and M4 Max chips, alongside a new entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro powered by the M4 chip. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. The new M4 Pro and M4 Max machines come with a minimum of 24GB of Unified Memory as standard, up from 18GB in the previous models. Both models feature three...
m3 macbook air blue

Apple Announces MacBook Air Now Starts With Increased 16GB of RAM With No Price Increase

Wednesday October 30, 2024 8:04 am PDT by
Apple today in its new MacBook Pro press release announced that the MacBook Air lineup now starts with 16GB of RAM, up from 8GB previously. This change applies to the 13-inch model with the M2 chip, the 13-inch model with the M3 chip, and the 15-inch model with the M3 chip. In the U.S., the MacBook Air lineup continues to start at $999, so there is no price increase associated with the...
m3 mbp space black

Apple Leaks M4 Max Chip Icon Ahead of Announcing New MacBook Pros

Tuesday October 29, 2024 8:48 am PDT by
Oops! Eagle-eyed developer Charlie Joseph today discovered that Apple has leaked its upcoming high-end M4 Max chip through an image uploaded to its website. The discovery was shared with Bloomberg's Mark Gurman on social media. It was already pretty obvious that Apple plans to announce new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max chips this week, after Apple promised...
iOS 18

iOS 18.1: What You Get If You Don't Have an iPhone With Apple Intelligence

Monday October 28, 2024 3:49 pm PDT by
iOS 18.1 is the first iOS 18 update with Apple Intelligence capabilities, and that's what a lot of the coverage about the new software has focused on. If you don't have an iPhone that's capable of Apple Intelligence, you're probably wondering just what's in the update for you. While Apple Intelligence does make up the bulk of what's new, if you have an older device, you still get some solid...
watchOS 11 Thumb 2 1

Apple Releases watchOS 11.1

Monday October 28, 2024 8:05 am PDT by
Apple today released watchOS 11.1, the first major update to the operating system that runs on the Apple Watch. watchOS 11.1 comes one month after Apple released watchOS 11. watchOS 11.1 is compatible with the Apple Watch Series 6 and later, all Apple Watch Ultra models, and the Apple Watch SE 2. watchOS 11.1 can be downloaded on an iPhone running iOS 18.1 by opening up the Apple Watch app...

Top Rated Comments

RealKrS Avatar
135 months ago
All I read in this tittle is: Apple Is Nowhere Near Releasing iWatch.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Chupa Chupa Avatar
135 months ago
Sounds more and more like it will be announced this year but not released until 2015. Which is fair enough.

Or hired them to work on v2.0.

----------

Wait.

So Apple hired some of the few people that Nike thought were not worth keeping?

If they are hardware engineers why would Nike keep them? Nike is giving up on hardware.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
farewelwilliams Avatar
135 months ago
tim cook is the eric schmidt in nike's board room?
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
The Barron Avatar
135 months ago
Apple getting its ducks in great order

Apple is very wise to get the best in very specific niche areas of technology for all of its products - near or into the future.

This is exactly why the other "wanna bes" continually chase, file meaningless law suits & have to resort to silly, "who cares?-type ads in an attempt to bash Apple.

Tim Cook et al know exactly what they're doing, so no worries. :apple:
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
peterdevries Avatar
135 months ago
All I read in this tittle is: Apple Is Nowhere Near Releasing iWatch.

Companies also hire additional personnel for future versions of their hardware. These hires say nothing about the status of a rumored iWatch.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dleute Avatar
135 months ago
essentials

let's hope the iWatch has wireless charging and is waterproof. both are likely deal breakers for me. Having to take out and charge *another* device will just get annoying.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)